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Saturday, 26 March 2016

I hope you have wonderful days with your loved ones ahead of you (and some time for crochet!).

The last weekend was spent in Cologne at the International Trade Fair for Handcrafts and Hobbies. You might recall my blog post about it from last year. This year, I wasn't a visitor. Instead I worked for Stylecraft as a translator (German to English).

I arrived on Friday morning and fortunately the wonderful ladies from Stylecraft spotted me straight away. The show opened at 9am but we could go in earlier. It was quite lovely to walk past the stalls without visitors there. The Stylecraft ladies took me into their team straight away and I had such a lovely time! Plus as a yarn addict it is very cool to see the new yarns and colors (not just from Stylecraft) ahead of their release. Ladies and Gents - I can tell you: Some wonderful yarn-y goodness is on its way to us! Can't wait!

Just as last year, there was soo much too see! Yarns, fabric, buttons... A crafters wonderland really. I kinda wish, I could have stayed there over night and play with all these things!! On the other hand... I wasn't too sad to put my feet up in the evenings either. ;-)

There were a lot of interested retailer at the Stylecraft stall and I really hope that some German retailers will stock the yarn as well soonish! I wish there was a store in Dortmund which stocked it, so I could just pop in whenever I need yarn instead of ordering online and waiting for the delivery! Oh well... till then I should use up my stash I guess (Hello, I am Anne and I am a yarn hoarder/yarn addict).

What really caught peoples eyes was the Frida's Flowers Blanket. Or rather blankets. There were 3 (!) Frida's Blankets on the stall. One in each recommend yarn. They each look wonderful but also very different depending on the yarn. The stitch definition is best with the cotton but the lightest version is the Special DK. I will crochet the blanket with cotton myself.

While waiting for retailers to come (they came in waves!), I managed to crochet two quick Elise Shawls with the Stylecraft Cabaret yarn. I am no big fan of glitter but the sparkle in this yarn is actually quite nice and great to work with! There was quite a bit of frogging involved though because it seems I made mistakes whenever I put the work down to do something else :P I finished the two shawls by Sunday evening though.

I kinda hope that Stylecraft needs a translator again next year... :D I had great fun!

Tuesday, 15 March 2016

Hi everyone! Just a quick post from me, as tonight was the big preview of the Sydney Royal Easter Show Arts & Crafts Competition! My whole family, plus my friend Cate came with me to the exhibition. It was very noisy and busy, and there were so many absent-minded wanderers (always dangerous when travelling in a wheelchair), but lots of fun, and we got to go out for dinner afterwards too. I entered 7 sections this year, and all of them made it into the displays :D

A trio of flower doilies

Starry Evening Stole

The Slow Rainbow Zig Zag Tote

PLUS! I got a highly commended ribbon:

Tumbling Blocks Baby Afghan

And THREE Third Place ribbons!!

Starwirbeln Cowl

Persian Tiles Afghan

Nellie the Elephant

I am so thrilled with the outcome - now I need to start planning my entries for next year!

Saturday, 12 March 2016

How are you doing? My last weeks have been rather busy with lots of different things.

For one thing, I finished another post-graduate certificate. I am now a university certified coach. As you might know, I coach academic writing and esp. phd-candidates in addition to my regular job. Now I have the official degree to do it :P I am thinking about becoming semi-self-employed that this year. There are a lot of things to consider and lots of paperwork, so it might take some time before it actually happens. Cross your fingers and wish me luck! :)

The other thing which kept me busy was my translation work for Stylecraft. As Michelle mentioned earlier last week, I am translating the new CAL, the Frida's Flowers Blanket pattern, to German. I am really happy to be able to work on this exciting project and quite honestly I can't wait to see all the blankets made from it! I will crochet the blanket too and guess what? It is the first CAL I am ever taking part in!

Translating sounds much easier than it sounds. The "text" parts are quicker to translate than the actual pattern. When I crochet, I use English patterns 99% of the time because the crochet language is so much easier. Oh and I learnt to crochet properly in English, so all my knowledge regarding crochet is stored in the English part of my brain. ;-) The German crochet language doesn't have nice and short abbreviations like 2sctog, so that makes the pattern a lot longer. With some rows, the German version is twice as long as the English original.

I am finished with the first two patterns and the get ready document and I will spend my Sunday translating the introductions to all the patterns. Phew! There are six more patterns to follow but I hope I can be a bit quicker with these now that I got the hang of it. Translating the first two took over five hours.

Oh and next to the translation stuff, I am also working on my cosy blanket. It is growing, in fact I am about 60 % done. I really need to hurry up. It has to be finished by the 20.5. but as the CAL starts on the 5.4. I want to be done with this blanket by then, so that I can work on the Frida's Flowers Blanket!

Tuesday, 8 March 2016

Hi everyone! And a special welcome to our new followers and readers :)

Thanks for your enthusiasm in entering our Frida's Flowers CAL giveaway - the response has totally blown us away! It's been so much fun for us to be involved with this CAL, and help out our favourite yarn brand - we are both busy with the patterns at the moment, Anne translating them into German, and me proofreading the American terms.

I had been drooling over the design, but couldn't really justify the expense for a wool blend blanket that I wouldn't be able to use. But, then Anne bought me the kit and pattern for my birthday last year!! She really is the best crochet friend, blog buddy and all round awesome person ever :D AND I found out that afghan entries for the Sydney Royal Easter Show needed to be wool or wool blend - it was meant to be!

I had a great time over the Christmas break up at the lake working on the motifs. It worked really well with chatting, frequent breaks for meals or games, and watching tv shows and movies.

As with the Lily Pond, I did find the pattern a bit awkward to follow, and after the first motif I did make some technique changes to make it easier for myself :P But, those colours..... :D :D :D

It ended up being about 1.2mx1.2m. The yarn is Stylecraft Life DK, a wool blend. While it was lovely to work with, my sensitivity to wool means that I can't keep it - so itchy! Hopefully someone will buy it at the Easter Show. If not, I'm sure I'll find someone to give it a good home :) I know it sounds like a real shame not to keep something so beautiful, but my real enjoyment in any craft project comes more from the making than the using!

Wish me luck for the show, and now I really can't wait for Frida's Flowers to start on 5 April! If you haven't entered the giveaway yet, you can do so here - it's such a great prize!!!

Friday, 4 March 2016

UPDATE 11/3/16 - THE WINNER IS MARIEKE DUIJST! Congratulations to Marieke :DWe can finally tell you about our secret and exciting project! Anne and I have been working with our favourite yarn brand, Stylecraft Yarns, on the US and German translations of the brand new Frida's Flowers CAL (designed by Jane Crowfoot)!!! The CAL starts on 5 April 2016, and will be released in 8 fortnightly instalments.

(c) Stylecraft Yarns

The Official English Facebook group is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1555519964767343/

Anne has also set up the Official German Facebook group for the CAL at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1039765272753087/

(c) Jane Crowfoot

And, to thank us for our assistance, Stylecraft is sponsoring a giveaway here on Crochet Between Worlds: one complete Stylecraft Classique Cotton yarn kit to make the Frida's Flowers blanket plus postage to anywhere in the world!!!!!!!!!!(ok, I'll try and tone down the exclamation marks from now on :P)

(c) Jane Crowfoot

The yarn kits go on sale across the world next Friday, 11 March 2016 - which is when we will announcing the winner of our giveaway (so you know whether you need to buy a kit or not!).Enter below! Please share the link to this post with your friends and yarn groups :)

Blog people

Hi there! We are Michelle and Anne and we share this blog! We have been friends for ages even though we live in different sides of the world (Australia and Germany). We share a common passion which is crochet (hence the blog name) but we blog about Australia, Germany, food and other stuff we like too.